Monday, November 7, 2011

Global warming is real

In case you needed any more evidence, here are two more studies showing exactly that. The first study, the Berkelely Earth Surface Temperature Study, is a review of the data from 15 sources compiled from almost 40,000 different surface temperature stations around the Earth. This study, run by Berkeley physicist and former global warming skeptic Richard Muller, confirms that the Earth is getting warmer. Muller himself was surprised at how closely the new data matched that of the previous studies.

Comparison of data showing decadal land-surface average world temperature changes from 15 different sources, some going back as far as 1800.

In case you aren’t familiar with the acronyms:

NASA GISS—NASA Goddard institute for Space Studies

NOAA—National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

HadCRU—Hadley center Climate Research Unit (the group that had been accused of scientific malfeasance by global warming deniers, but was later cleared of all wrongdoing).

Credit: Image courtesy of Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature.

The Berkeley study only went back a couple of centuries. The next study, by Svante Björck of Lund University, goes back 20,000 years. By examining ice cores from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, he was able to show that the warming going on today is unlike previous warming events in Earth’s history. On previous occasions, only one hemisphere warmed at a time, not both as is happening now. This is evidence that the climate change we see is caused by an external force, namely us.

Stochastic Scientist? What's up with that?

Why the Stochastic Scientist? As I'm sure you all know, 'stochastic' is another word for 'random', which is what I intend for the focus of this blog. Although my formal training is as a molecular biologist, there are many other fields of science that are also fascinating and beautiful. It's my intention to blog about which ever scientific discovery or invention catches my, and hopefully your, fancy.

I also hope to inspire people to learn more about science. By choosing among a huge variety of scientific endeavors, I'll undoubtably hit upon something that will pique my readers' interest.

I guess I could have called my blog 'The Joy of Science', but that wouldn't have been quite so random.